Undeniable

When the necklace is fastened, I don’t move. His fingers are still lightly touching my neck, but I’d rather die than break the contact.

At first, he doesn’t move either, but after a moment, his fingers start to trace a slow path outward, from my neck to my shoulders.

I feel as if I’m floating. I can’t breathe, and when I feel his lips touch my shoulder in a soft gentle kiss, a sigh escapes me.

I turn around, urged by his hands on my shoulders. When I look up at him, his eyes are fixed on my lips. I wait expectantly, my heart in my mouth, and my stomach twisted in excitement.

“Olivia.” He says softly, looking up from my lips to meet my eyes. His eyes are smoldering, the fire in their depths echoing the one I feel raging in my body, and his voice is like a caress all over my skin.

“Jackson.” My response is a soft whisper.

He makes a sound, a low groan, and then his lips are on mine, warm, tender, and lighting a fire in my stomach that heats my blood, my body, my soul.

He pulls me against him, and I moan with pleasure, pressing my body closer to him. I’m crushed against the hard muscles of his chest as his lips move softly

over mine. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever experienced. My heart is fluttering, and my stomach feels so light, I’m afraid it would float away.

I can’t resist the urge to explore, and my fingers find their way into his hair, threading their way through the soft wavy mass. In response, he groans and deepens the kiss, his tongue delving into my mouth, caressing, tasting, and making my body sing.

Suddenly, he releases my lips, ending the kiss, but he doesn’t pull away. He rests his forehead on mine, one hand still around my waist, and the other at the back of my neck, still holding me close to him. After a while, I open my eyes, and I see that he’s smiling.

“Olivia.” He draws out the sound of my name, still smiling, then he presses a kiss on both my cheeks, down on my collarbone, my shoulders, then back to my face, my eyes and my cheeks, each small kiss taking me further and further to the place where my heart will surely burst.

“You’re perfect,” he whispers between kisses.

I sigh, unable to keep standing without leaning on him for support. “Thanks,” I whisper in reply, shyness and happiness, warring for supremacy in my head. One of my dreams had just come true. Jackson Lockewood has given me my first kiss, and it was perfect.

He chuckles softly as he runs a thumb over my lower lip, and then my cheek. “I wanted to do that for so long,” He says, a small smile still on his lips. “You don't think I’m a shameless older guy taking advantage of you, do you?”

I shake my head. I can’t find the words to tell him how I’ve longed for this, how my heart feels like it’s going to rise right out of my chest and burst into a thousand shimmering stars. “You’re not taking advantage of me,” I say instead, “and anyway you’re not much older than I am.”

He seems to be thinking about what I said, but I don’t want him to think, I want him to kiss me again. I’m too shy to say so, but somehow, as if he can read my mind, he lowers his lips to mine again, and this time, it’s even better that the first time.

Somehow, we find our way to my room and end up on the bed. We don’t do anything but kiss and talk. It’s sweet and wonderful and beautiful all at the same time.

“Have you really wanted to kiss me for a long time?” I ask.

Jackson laughs and nuzzles my neck. “Amongst other things, Yes.”

I giggle at the sensation of his nose against my throat. “So why didn’t you?”

He is laying half on top of me on the bed. When I ask my question, he rests his weight on his elbows so he can look at me. His gaze is serious. “Had you ever been kissed before?”

I look away from his probing gray eyes, overwhelmed with shyness again. Slowly I shake my head.

“You’re young, and inexperienced, and the decent thing to do…. That I’ve been trying to do, would be to let you have your high school adventures, your first crush, kiss, relationship, and all that with someone your own age.” He’s using his ‘serious' voice, and I know he means every word he’s saying, but he couldn’t be more wrong.

“I’ve never wanted any of those things with anybody else, Jackson,” I interrupt, making him stop talking. “It was always you.”

Chapter Nine

Past

THE words hang in the air between us, and for a moment, Jackson does nothing other than look at me, his gray eyes, growing darker and stormier with each passing second. Suddenly, he’s kissing me again, his body pressed against mine, so I can feel his hard chest against my breasts, and the unfamiliar tightness and bulge in his jeans pressing against my thigh. I want to be adventurous and touch him there, but I’m too much of a coward, and he seems perfectly satisfied to kiss me and kiss me until my whole body feels like I’m floating on a cloud of ecstasy.

After what I know only seems like a short while because I would gladly spend a lifetime kissing Jackson, I hear the sounds of another car coming up the drive.

“That’s Aunt Constance.” I say unnecessarily.